AT&T shames unauthorized phone tetherers, gives ultimatum

AT&T apparently has an eye on people who are tethering their smartphones to …

AT&T has begun cracking down on smartphone customers—particularly iPhone users—who have been secretly tethering their smartphones to their laptops without paying for a tethering plan. The company sent text messages to the offending users, followed up with an e-mail, that says they've been identified as taking advantage the feature without paying up. If those users continue to tether and don't make changes to their accounts, AT&T will automatically begin charging for the DataPro tethering plan from March 27. Those who quit tethering before then won't have to upgrade their accounts.

"Many AT&T customers use their smartphones as a broadband connection for other devices, like laptops, netbooks or other smartphones—a practice commonly known as tethering. Tethering can be an efficient way for our customers to enjoy the benefits of AT&T's mobile broadband network and use more than one device to stay in touch with important people and information," reads the beginning of AT&T's e-mail.

"Our records show that you use this capability, but are not subscribed to our tethering plan... if we don't hear from you, we'll plan to automatically enroll you into DataPro 4GB after March 27, 2011. The new plan—whether you sign up on your own or we automatically enroll you—will replace your current smartphone data plan, including if you are on an unlimited data plan."

AT&T currently offers either a $15/month 250MB 3G data plan for smartphone users, or a $25/month 2GB plan. If customers want to tether the legit way, they must subscribe to the 2GB data plan and pay AT&T another $20 for the privilege of sharing their smartphone's 3G connection with a computer or hotspot, at which point the monthly data cap goes up to 4GB. iPhone users who jailbreak their devices have long been able to tether without paying anything extra to AT&T—it's one of the main reasons people jailbreak—making those iPhone users particularly susceptible to AT&T's latest crackdown.

As for how AT&T is identifying these users, it's possible the carrier is simply looking at data usage trends and making an educated guess. It's also possible, as pointed out by TUAW, that browser ID strings are giving tethering users away. Or, as a reddit commentor points out, AT&T may be noticing different-than-expected TTL (Time To Live) units on packets sent from a computer through a tethered smartphone. Either way, AT&T is keeping mum on exactly how it's detecting tethering users and claims the e-mails are only going out to a "small number of smartphone customers."

So far, we don't know of anyone who has received AT&T's e-mail in error. Did any of you receive the message, and if so what are you planning to do?

People in the modmyi forums are reporting that they just play dumb with AT&T and they drop the matter completely. It seems like their evidence is so thin that this is more of a FUD campaign, than an actual stake burning.

That is kind of absurd. Aside from the question of why it is there business if you tether your phone, automatically signing someone up for a $20/month service sounds kind of like... a crime? Block the service, or cancel someones account if you feel like they are misusing it, but automatically subscribing someone to a service they didn't request is theft, even if you send them a warning message.

Of course, I pay 5 euro/month for data and they don't give a crap what devices I use it with. And my android phone supports tethering out of the box with no jailbreak.

"Our records show that you use this capability, but are not subscribed to our tethering plan... if we don't hear from you, we'll plan to automatically enroll you into DataPro 4GB after March 27, 2011. The new plan—whether you sign up on your own or we automatically enroll you—will replace your current smartphone data plan, including if you are on an unlimited data plan."

Then don't call it an "unlimited data plan", how's that? English, AT&T, do you speak it?

That is kind of absurd. Aside from the question of why it is there business if you tether your phone, automatically signing someone up for a $20/month service sounds kind of like... a crime? Block the service, or cancel someones account if you feel like they are misusing it, but automatically subscribing someone to a service they didn't request is theft, even if you send them a warning message.

Of course, I pay 5 euro/month for data and they don't give a crap what devices I use it with. And my android phone supports tethering out of the box with no jailbreak.

It's worse than that: they're automatically singing them up for a $25 + $20 a month service with limited data in place of their $25 service, or if they had unlimited, $30. That's a 50% or more increase because they detected some packets AND removing their legacy unlimited data plan. Pretty frustrating, if you ask me.

Thank you for your lease of AT&T's Hammer(tm). You will find that your Hammer product is licensed only for the insertion and extraction of nails, and any usage of Hammer to drive screws or open piggy banks is unauthorized, and will require an upgrade to our "Useful Hammer" plan.

I'm a staunch conservative and free market proponent. But I also realize some regulation is necessary and even beneficial in the right areas. This is one of those areas. Bits are bits, no matter what generates them. Data generated from an iPhone is no different than data generated from a MacBook. These companies should not be allowed to discriminate based on the source of the packets. You pay for 2GB, you should get to decide how to use that.

A good analogy would be a toll road that makes you pay more as your number of passengers increase. You're sharing one vehicle, taking up the same amount of the road, and yet you pay more because you carpooled. Everyone can see that this is a ridiculous scenario.

Thank you for your lease of AT&T's iHammer(tm). You will find that your iHammer product is licensed only for the insertion and extraction of nails, and any usage of Hammer to drive screws or open piggy banks is unauthorized, and will require an upgrade to our "Useful Hammer" plan.

What's interesting is we've become complacent with allowing phone companies to charge extra for data we are already paying for. We pay a charge to use the network, it's really no business of the company how we utilize that service. To charge extra to have another device connected to the same service is similar to connecting a second computer on your home network. Back some years ago ISPs also attempted to charge extra for this idea, but now is virtually unheard of thanks to NAT.

It is just criminal that someone who already pays for a certain data volume would be charged for certain kinds of traffic. The term "Internet neutrality" comes to mind. The whole idea of having to pay for tethering on an already limited data plan is outrageous.Not to mention that inspection of the user's data traffic amounts to spying.

But I have another, maybe more fundamental objection: What business does AT&T or any provider have with the internal configuration of my network connection? How is it possible that Apple allows them to control that? Apple, play nice and don't give AT&T or any other provider the option.

I jailbroke my iphone4, have tetherme installed, and have tethered on several occasions, but I don't do so regularly, only while travelling or when my cable modem goes down at home, which doesn't happen too often. I last tethered the phone for a couple hours in early February. I did NOT get a message from AT&T about this.

the more i learn about it, the more fucked up the US mobile network market seems to be.

And still i get the impression that more people there trust corporations then government...

I know, absurd, right!? It's not like the government can just subscribe (mandate that you buy one, or pay penalties) you to a health insurance policy or create other mandates that you're on the hook for! The government is just teh awesome!

WTF, dude!? Are you slow or just pretending? The impression you get is correct, because people in this country use their brains. You don't have to buy a cellphone or subscribe to a plan and if you do want one you have a choice. What country is it that you live in where your government gives you a choice in whether you pay your taxes or not?!

That is kind of absurd. Aside from the question of why it is there business if you tether your phone, automatically signing someone up for a $20/month service sounds kind of like... a crime? Block the service, or cancel someones account if you feel like they are misusing it, but automatically subscribing someone to a service they didn't request is theft, even if you send them a warning message.

Jailbreaking your phone to use a service that you have no permission to use it theft.

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Of course, I pay 5 euro/month for data and they don't give a crap what devices I use it with. And my android phone supports tethering out of the box with no jailbreak.

Seriously? To connect laptops to the internet when you aren't at home. To connect wi-fi only devices like eReaders when you aren't at home, to provide better connection security than using a public wi-fi hotspot, etc. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for tethering, and there will just be more as time goes on. It doesn't make sense to carry around more than one device with wireless internet access, when you can just connect everything to it.

Hey, at least AT&T is warning peolpe, and choosing not to back-bill at all, just forward bill automatically if you don't stop. I know more than 10 people who have received bills from Sprint or VZW for tethering without a plan, one of them pushing $1100... No warning, just a bill and threatening letter. 2 of them only found out because their cell phones stopped working as they plan had been automatically terminated.

AT&T is being pretty lenient here. We know they LET iPhone users tether without complaint prior to 4.0 since there was no corresponding AT&T tethering plan, but now that there is, and its been a long while, I guess people ought to start paying for what they're using.

Jeez, who cares what you use your 2gb on? You paid for it, and you're within your right to use it on whatever PC you want. The unlimited offering I can see why they have a problem with that. But that's going away soon anyway.

For example, my provider has two iPhone plans, but only one has tethering included for free. I'm on the smaller one without tethering, if I try to turn it on I get a message to call my provider. Simple as that.

Sure getting stuff for free is nice, but i can see where they're coming from

However, I do think it's a little funny that people who have cracked their phones to get around their service agreement are now outraged to find the service agreement being enforced. The fact that you had to crack your phone may have been a hint that you were doing something that might not be considered kosher.